Complaint of vote rigging filed against Maoist chief Prachanda

A complaint of vote rigging was on Tuesday filed against Prachanda by a CPN-UML candidate who lost narrowly to the Maoist supremo in the November 19 polls.

Kathmandu: A complaint of vote rigging was on Tuesday filed against Prachanda by a CPN-UML candidate who lost narrowly to the Maoist supremo in the November 19 polls.

Prachanda secured 15,244 votes, just 900 more than his nearest rival Lilanath Shrestha of CPN-UML, in Siraha 5 constituency in southern Nepal.
Shrestha alleged that the 58-year-old UCPN-Maoist leader won through vote rigging.

While the vote counting was in progress and Prachanda was behind Shrestha by a few hundred votes, the process was disrupted for three hours on November 19.

In his complaint, the CPN-UML candidate submitted reports from election observers, media reports and the statistics of vote counting.

During a press conference here, Shrestha claimed that six polling booths from two villages were captured and that the public were barred from casting votes independently.

He alleged that votes were cast in favour of Prachanda in the captured booths.

Prachanda had contested from two constituencies - Siraha 5 and Kathmandu 10 - in the polls to elect a 601-member Constituent Assembly.
He faced a humiliating defeat in Kathmandu 5 constituency in the hand of Nepali Congress candidate Rajan KC who reduced him to the third position.

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